


A Little Madness in the Spring

by abhorsen (beeezie)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Community: HPFT, Drama, Prophetic Dreams, R plus L equals J, War Of The Five Kings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 12:11:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7050460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beeezie/pseuds/abhorsen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robb's sister officially enters the realms of entirely too much trouble when the captured Kingslayer recognizes the stamp of old Valyria on her face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue --- Catelyn.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catelyn couldn’t remember a time her husband had ever explicitly told her that the bastard children he'd brought back were his son and his daughter. He’d always skirted around the words when she’d asked him. She’d thought that it was simply shame.
> 
> Maybe it had been something else.

It only took a moment.

Catelyn Stark had argued with her son when she’d found that he’d brought his bastard sister south with his army. She’d rid herself of half the pair when the boy had gone north to the Wall, and she’d hoped that she’d at least been able to avoid the other half until the girl could be married off to a house minor enough that the prospect of Stark blood in their house would count for more than the fact that it came by way of a bastard.

But her husband’s bastard twins had grown too close to her own trueborn children. They’d never been learned their proper place in the world. Instead, they’d been taught to give lip service to their station - calling her husband _Lord Stark_ in public as though that obscured the gifts and the lessons and the occasional slips of _Father_ in private.

Catelyn couldn’t get away from them. She had no idea why Robb had brought the girl with him, or why she was always at his council meetings, or why she spoke so freely and challenged even the greatest lords of the North when she thought they were wrong. She had no idea why many of the lords - not all, nowhere near all, but many - even seemed to _listen_ to her, or why Robb glared at those that scoffed.

It was building resentments. It had to be. Catelyn had never thought that she would miss Jon Snow, but even he would have preferable to his sister. Great lords didn’t like bastards pretending to high status in their midst, but they particularly didn’t like bastard girls who claimed to know about combat and troop movements and strategy. She knew this, even if Robb did not.

It happened on a day when she was particularly smarting from her son’s insistence on treating his bastard siblings as though they were trueborn, following a conversation with him that had become downright nasty. She’d been quietly making inquiries about whether there would be anyone willing to marry the bastard and take her off their hands when Robb had found out.

He had not appreciated it.

_“Two of my bannermen have come to me with an interesting story,” he’d said, his voice soft. Grey Wind was pacing behind them; he was restless, which meant that Robb, despite an outward appearance of calm, was restless. “They said that they’d heard that I was making inquiries into marriage for my sister.”_

_Catelyn pursed her lips together but didn’t speak. If his bannermen had indeed come to him, the platitudes she’d gotten thus far may not have been as empty as she’d thought. That was promising._

_“I haven’t made any such inquiries,” her son added. The word_ inquiries _slid off his tongue as though there was something deeply distasteful about it. “Nor have I asked anyone to do so on my behalf. Do you know anything about this?”_

_Now she sighed. “If it could help solidify your alliances -”_

_“No.” His voice was flat. “I need her here.”_

_“Robb -”_

_“I need her here,” he repeated. “I’ve told them that it’s not something I’m considering right now.”_

_“You had offers?”_

_“It doesn’t matter. I need her here.”_

_Catelyn knew her son well enough to know that that was the end of the conversation._

She was still smarting from the abrupt dismissal several hours later when she heard the clash of steel and a girl’s laughter. The former sound was far from uncommon in a camp of thousands of soldiers; the latter, however, was more unusual. When she peered around the tent, she saw her son sheathing his sword and offering his hand toward the girl, who was sprawled on the ground, a sword still in her left hand.

There were more men watching than Catelyn was entirely comfortable with. This wasn’t a private affair, and no good could come of a woman publicly learning to use a sword. Robb would have done well to remember that, but he’d always been blind where her husband’s bastards had been involved.

She heard a soft chuckle behind her. She glanced back at Rodrik, whose eyes were fixed on the scene. After a moment, he met her eyes and smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, my lady,” he said. “For a moment, I…” He trailed off.

Catelyn glanced back at the circle. “You’re improving,” she heard her son say. She looked back at Rodrik before she could hear the girl’s response.

He didn’t need to finish his thought. They both knew who was thinking about. “She takes after her aunt,” Rodrik said apologetically. “She has her blood. That’s all.”

Catelyn barely acknowledged him as he strode away. Something about the phrase he’d used was nagging at her.

_Her blood._ That was it. _Her blood._

Her memory took her back to Winterfell, back to her husband. He’d used that phrase, too. _My blood,_ he’d said. She’d thought nothing of it at the time, at least not beyond the dull ache in her gut that she always got when she thought about Ned and the woman he’d sacrificed his honor and vows for.

Now something about it stuck with her, burrowing its way into her skull. _My blood,_ a little voice said. _My blood._

She couldn’t have said why the strangeness struck her at that particularly moment, but it did.

_My blood._

She couldn’t remember a time her husband had ever explicitly told her that they were his son and his daughter. She could remember him alluding to it, saying it to others, and above all never correcting anyone who called them his bastards, but he’d always skirted around the words when she’d asked him. She’d thought that it was simply shame.

Maybe it had been something else - or, at least, a different kind of shame.

When her mind finally put the pieces together, she felt no less stunned than she had when she’d taken a stumble down the stairs leading to Winterfell’s crypt, early in her marriage to Ned. And yet the more she thought about it, the more the pieces seemed to fit. They weren’t his bastards at all.

They were his sister’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When Jon tried to desert, I started to think about the dynamic he would have introduced to Robb's campaign if he'd been there. At the same time, though, I really do like Jon at the wall, and the idea of a girl makes the dynamic even more fraught when it comes to Cat, so here it is. :) I may revisit this character (whose name is Aislin, though I specifically chose not to let Cat use her name) at some point, but I'm currently undecided.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	2. A Promise --- Aislin.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I can’t make you and my mother like each other, nor do I plan to try. But you _will_ be civil and respectful. You do me no good here if you’re inciting my bannermen who like my bastard sister to _dislike_ my mother."

There were times Aislin missed the days when they had all just been children at Winterfell, and Robb’s status as _the heir_ hadn’t had much bearing at all on her interactions with him.

This was one of them.

It wasn’t Robb-the-heir who tracked her down outside Dacey Mormont’s tent. It was Robb-the-king, and he wasn’t pleased.

“Sister,” he said. When he smiled, his teeth reminded her of a wolf’s teeth, which was not an auspicious start to the conversation. “I would have a word with you.”

She exchanged an abbreviated goodbye with the Mormont women and allowed him to steer her toward his tent. His grip on her arm wasn’t quite hard enough to _hurt,_ but it wasn’t particularly pleasant.

“Robb, what -”

He thrust the flap of the tent aside and yanked her inside. She winced as the heavy fabric fell back across the opening; this conversation was sure to be anything but positive.

“Robb, _what_ -”

“What _exactly_ did you say about my mother this morning?”

She winced. “You heard about that.”

“Of _course_ I heard about that.”

Aislin decided not to take a moment to inform him that there had been other comments that he clearly _hadn’t_ heard about, if this was his response to a fairly benign remark over breakfast. Discretion was sometimes the better part of valor, even if it wasn’t particularly fair - Lady Stark had certainly said far more about Aislin than Aislin had ever said about her.

Of course, Lady Stark was Lady Stark, and Aislin was a bastard, which changed things a little.

“You can’t do that,” he snapped. His jaw was clenched so tightly she could practically hear his teeth grinding. If she’d been smart, she’d have stopped talking and apologized.

But she’d never been smart. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play dumb. It doesn’t suite you.”

“I’m not.”

“Then you’re too stupid to be any good here and I should send you back to Winterfell.”

Her scowl got deeper. “I think you just keep me here so you can call someone names with no repercussions.”

Robb finally let go of her and fell into one of the chairs. “That’s a good idea, actually.” His anger seemed to be fading.

Aislin let her weight rest against the table and crossed her arms. His temper may have been cooling, but her irritation was not. “Well, tell your _lady mother_ to stop treating me like a burden to your authority and possibly the whole war. I’m _tired_ of the way she cuts me down when she thinks you aren’t looking. And -”

He cut her off. “Father is dead. Bran and Rickon are children, Sansa is a hostage, Arya is apparently missing entirely, and Jon is at the Wall.”

“I know where Jon is,” she muttered. That was a sore point she hadn’t gotten over, and she couldn’t see herself getting over it anytime soon. If she was being honest with herself, the general animosity she felt toward Catelyn Stark was as much due to the woman driving her brother away as anything that she’d had done to Aislin personally. She wouldn’t see Jon for years to come - if she ever saw him again at all.

She knew that Robb missed him. She knew that Bran, back at Winterfell, missed him. She knew that Arya, if she was still alive, missed him from wherever she was.

But it wasn’t the same thing. She missed her brother so much it hurt like a hole in her gut. It had been bad enough when they were still living peacefully at Winterfell, but the war had made it much, much worse. He should have been _here,_ at Robb’s side, telling Robb all the things he wouldn’t listen to when it was Theon Greyjoy or Lady Stark saying them. She didn’t even have enough room to be angry with Jon for leaving and for taking his stupid vows. The ache was too raw and too recent.

She could be angry with everyone else, though.

Robb sighed. He opened his mouth, but the glare she directed at him made him close it again. After a moment, he left the Jon issue alone, which was really just as well. “The point is, Ash, that I don’t have a lot of family left that can actually help me in this war right now, and I need those that can to _get along.”_

“Your mother was trying to marry me off!”

“I know, and I put a stop to it. Have some faith in me. No one is going to marry you off without my consent, and I’m not going to stick you into a marriage alliance without talking to you.” His expression darkened. “The rumors we’ve heard coming out of King’s Landing do not have me in a rush to use my sisters to make marriage alliances anytime soon, particularly not when they’re old enough to actually go through with the wedding.”

That was cold comfort. She knew what rumors he was talking about, and they made her queasy. “It’s the _principle,”_ she said after a long pause.

His patience had clearly worn thin. “No,” he said flatly. “It’s not. I can’t make you and my mother like each other, nor do I plan to try. But you _will_ be civil and respectful. You do me no good here if you’re inciting my bannermen who like my bastard sister to _dislike_ my mother. Wars have been lost over less, and I can’t afford to alienate the Riverlands.”

Aislin winced. Robb could be relatively patient in private, at least with his family, but if you pushed him after he’d made it clear that a matter was closed, he had a tendency to lose his temper. Simple curiosity made her want to ask whether anyone had tried to take his mother up on the not-so-quiet inquiries she’d been presenting as being on his behalf, but his tone told her that this matter _was_ closed, and she knew better than to push it.

She suspected he afforded his mother rather more patience than he did her, though she wasn’t sure if the root cause was that Catelyn Stark was his mother and she only his sister, or that she was his bastard half-sister.

She liked to think it was the former - and even if it was the latter, she got far more leeway than most bastards did when they challenged their lord, let alone their king. She had no complaints anyone would sympathize with.

He was studying her. 

“Understood.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, and he jerked his head toward the sword laying on the table. His was strapped to his belt, as always. “You need practice.”

She took it as the peace offering it was and reached out for the sword. Even if he hadn’t been the king, the rebuke had been more than reasonable, especially given the promise he’d made to her about a potential marriage alliance - which was a large part of why she’d been so upset in the first place. And he _was_ the king, first and foremost, and she didn’t think he could reasonably deliver any more than he’d just given her.

Besides, the threat to send her back to Winterfell loomed far too large in her mind just then, and she had no doubt that he meant it.

He caught her free wrist before they left the tent. “I’m _not_ going to marry you off,” he said. “Trust me.”

“I do.”

He licked his lips, opened his mouth, and closed it again. After a moment, he said, “I know you miss him.”

She looked away. She could keep her composure or let him meet her eyes. She couldn’t do both. After a moment, she felt his arms close around her, and she took a deep, shuddering breath. “I do,” she repeated into his shoulder. “I wish he was here.”

“So do I.” He drew back. “Come on. It’ll help to get your mind off it.”

It wasn’t until later in the day that she stumbled upon Catelyn Stark, who seemed so lost in her own thoughts that she was barely aware of the activity around her. When Aislin came into her line of sight, however, she started.

“Good evening, my lady,” Aislin said, forcing a polite smile onto her face. Robb had extracted a promise from her, so she would do her very best to live up to it.

Despite personal feelings that made her wish she could pretend she just hadn’t seen his mother.

Lady Stark was scrutinizing her closely. As the lady’s eyes swept from her face and windswept wisps escaping from her braid to the trousers she was wearing, she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Maybe Robb hadn’t been as clear as he’d thought about the marriage nonsense.

“Good evening,” the lady said after a long and uncomfortable silence. “Would you care to escort me back to my tent?”

Aislin wanted to ask why, but the promise - and the threat - loomed large in her mind and made her keep her silence. Instead, she said, “Of course, my lady.”

As they walked, Lady Stark said, in a voice so soft Aislin strained to hear it over the activity around the camp, “I trust my son has spoken with you as well?”

Aislin stiffened. “He’s spoken to me, my lady.”

“He told me in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t marrying you off to anyone.” Her voice was light. “You don’t need to worry; I’m not going to go behind his back.”

Aislin felt a small measure of tension dissipate. “He told me that if I couldn’t get along with you, he’d send me back to Winterfell.” As soon as she said it, she felt like an idiot; she’d just handed Catelyn Stark instructions on how to get rid of her.

To her surprise, when she darted a glance at the woman beside her, the lady smiled. “He knows what to hold over your head,” she said. “He takes after his uncle that way; Brandon always knew how to get to a person’s heart. You take after those in the family too earnest to try.”

Aislin kept her mouth from falling open only by biting down hard on her lower lip. She didn’t think Lady Stark had ever explicitly acknowledged her as having Stark blood before, and certainly not in such a companionable way. “Oh.” They walked in silence for a minute. “I’m sorry,” she said finally. “I know you don’t like me, and I know you wish I wasn’t here.”

“If your being here will help my son win this war, I’m glad to have you here. He needs people he can trust, and I don’t believe you would ever betray him.”

“Of course not. He’s my blood.”

Lady Stark smiled again, though this one was much fainter. “Your blood,” she repeated. “Yes, he is.” They stopped in front of the tent. “Good night, Aislin.”

Aislin stood there until the flap of the tent closed behind Lady Stark. That was, without a doubt, one of the strangest conversations with Robb’s mother that she had ever had.

At least it had been amiable, though - and she didn’t think Lady Stark was manipulative enough to pretend to amiability in an attempt to manipulate her.

Which raised a good number of questions all on its own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided to add another couple chapters to this - this one is (obviously) from Aislin's pov, and I think the last one will be from Robb's. I'd love feedback on how I did at capturing all of them if you have a moment, and regardless, thank you so much for reading!


	3. Misgivings --- Robb.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “When all the great lords of the North and the Riverlands were naming you _The King in the North_ and _The King of the Trident,_ did you think that rebuffing marriage proposals for your bastard sister would end up taking up quite so much time?”

Robb hadn’t been hopeful when he’d pulled aside first his mother and then his sister to have words with them both about their mutual animosity and his mother’s attempts to quietly use Aislin to make a marriage “alliance.” The very concept _still_ irritated him. Any of his bannermen who would have been happy to wed his bastard sister weren’t bannermen whose loyalty was likely to be in question in the first place, and with no Jon - and he’d have given a lot to have Jon, too - he had precisely one sibling who was in any position to help him win this war. He wasn’t convinced that losing that resource would have been worth any marriage alliance, and it certainly wasn’t worth one with someone who was _already_ one of his bannermen.

And he’d meant what he’d told Ash - what he’d heard from King’s Landing had brought into disturbing clarity how vulnerable women could be in marriage alliances, and while he couldn’t help Sansa right now, he could learn the lesson he wished his father had learned sooner: trust your instincts.

His instincts said to keep Ash near.

He was glad that she’d stopped making cutting remarks about his mother, understandable though some of them were, because if it had come to it, he wasn’t even sure he’d have been able to follow through with sending her back to Winterfell. He hoped it wasn’t weakness made him hesitate - he couldn’t afford weakness, not now.

But he remembered the dream she’d had about the crypts, just before they’d gotten the raven from King’s Landing about their father’s death. Her eyes had been glassy and unfocused that morning, and when he’d asked her what was wrong, she’d just shaken her head and said something about a dream. The day after they’d gotten word, he’d asked her again. That time, she’d told him she’d dreamed of their father standing in front of their aunt Lyanna’s tomb, wreathed in darkness and the haunting music echoing up from deeper into the crypts.

The memory still made the goosebumps rise on his arms. There was something not quite _right_ about what she’d described and how she’d described it. He’d warred with himself, but in the end, he just couldn’t believe that it was coincidence - and while he’d always thought that such dreams were confined to the realms of legend and legend alone, he’d also thought that about direwolves.

And yet here they were.

He’d had his share of wolf dreams since he’d adopted Grey Wind, too - and more than once, the things he’d dreamed about turned out to be true in the light of day. It was enough to make him wonder, and Aislin’s dreaming of their father just then and in just that way seemed too strange to be a coincidence.

No. Every time he remembered that dream and the halting way she’d described it, he knew it wasn’t weakness that made him keep her here.

Or at least, it wasn’t just weakness.

Thankfully, his threat, empty though it may have been, seemed to have been reasonably effective. To his surprise, his mother had also been making an effort to be - not quite friendly, perhaps, but far beyond merely civil.

He didn’t think much more of it beyond simple relief; he had more pressing things to worry about than brokering an impossible friendship between his mother and her late husband’s bastard daughter. Not having to worry about tension between them affecting his lords and distracting him from more important matters was all he’d wanted in the first place.

He realized that there may have been more going on two weeks after he’d spoken to them. He was surveying the camp when Theon stepped up beside him. “A word, your grace?”

It was still disconcerting to hear, especially coming from the mouth of someone he’d grown up with. “You don’t have to call me _your grace_ when no one’s around.”

“It’s not so bad once you get used to it.”

Theon’s request - to journey to Pyke to seek his father’s aid - wasn’t a bad thought, and Robb was inclined to agree to it. He didn’t think that the other man was wrong about King’s Landing, at least not if Robb wanted to save his sister Sansa.

The sticking point came when Theon proposed that they seal the alliance with something stronger than their shared history and affection.

“If nothing’s been decided, of course,” he hastened to add after a speech that felt a little too rehearsed. It was a mercy that Aislin was not in hearing distance. “I know your mother started making inquiries a few weeks ago, so it might be too late.”

Robb studied him closely. He’d been more concerned about putting this entire debacle behind him than clarifying the situation beyond a flat “no” to all who asked, but now he wished he’d done so. “I didn’t think that your father would appreciate a marriage alliance with a bastard,” he said at last.

“You’re the king. You could legitimize her.”

Theon wasn’t wrong on that point, and on the surface, the request was a sensible one, even if it came attached to a proposal that Robb knew he would be declining. However, that didn’t change the rapidly growing sensation of dirt and grime creeping across his skin in a way that bothered him far more than real dirt and grime ever had.

Theon was still waiting. “I’ll consider it,” Robb said. When Theon smiled, Robb didn’t like the look in his eyes. 

He debated bringing it up with his mother. Despite her change in demeanor since he’d spoken with her, she’d set the wheels of this in motion in the first place, and he didn’t want to defend his decision. In the end, though, he couldn’t separate the proposed marriage from the rest of Theon’s proposal.

To his surprise, as soon as the word “marriage” was out of his mouth, his mother’s voice rang out sharply across the tent. “No. That’s out of the question.”

Her vehemence succeeded in momentarily sidetracking him. “Two weeks ago, you were all for marrying her off to the first northern lord _already_ loyal to me that would take her.”

“I wouldn’t send anyone you cared about into the heart of a kraken, and neither should you. Were you intending to say yes?”

He frowned. His mother had never liked Theon, and it was difficult to discern how much of her reaction came from that. “Of course not. I told you it was out of the question. That hasn’t changed.”

“Do you trust Theon Greyjoy?”

The sensation of dirt and grime sunk far too deep was starting to return. “With my life,” he said after a long pause. “But not with hers. I didn’t like the look in his eyes.”

His mother stood. Her expression was stony. “If you can’t trust a man with the life of your family, you shouldn’t trust him with yours, and you shouldn’t trust such a man to negotiate on your behalf.” She swept out before he could stop her, leaving him feeling even more uncomfortable than he already had. He wasn’t entirely sure that she was wrong, though he couldn’t put his finger on why Theon had just made him feel that way. To Robb’s knowledge, he’d never threatened Aislin - they’d always seemed to coexist in mutual indifference, hovering on the outskirts of the other’s life.

And while his mother’s response was less pressing, there was something bothering him about the vehemence of her reaction, too, given that she’d never much liked Aislin, either.

He was glad when his sister poked her head in an hour later to drop a letter from Bran at Winterfell on the table. “Wait,” he said as she made to step back out into the night air. “I need to talk to you.”

Her eyebrows drew together. “What’s wrong?”

He jerked his head up, and she sidled past the table to sink into the chair next to him, sweeping aside her skirts. It was impossible to read her face.

“Where’s Vhagar?”

She whistled, and the red wolf slunk into the tent. Her fur practically glowed in the candlelight; Robb could understand why Ash had named her after the great dragon, though he still wasn’t sure what he thought of naming a creature of the north after a fire-breathing monster from Valyria.

Of course, Rickon had named his wolf Shaggydog. There were worse legacies.

“Keep her with you,” he told her.

“She usually is.” Her face, usually guarded and a little unfriendly in mixed company, had just started to relax; now, it hardened again. “Why? What’s going on?”

“You have your daggers on you? Always?”

 _“Yes,_ Robb, always. We talked about it. You made it clear. What’s going on?”

He couldn’t shake the pit in his stomach. “Theon apparently wants to marry you.”

Her eyebrows drew together. “I thought that was _done_ with,” she started, and he held up his hand.

“It is,” he told her, wishing yet again that his mother had never started the conversation at all. He’d spent far too much effort on dealing with marriage proposals that were both completely unwanted and utterly hopeless over the past several weeks. His mind needed to be on the war, not on deflecting people who wanted to marry his sister - who wanted nothing to do with any of it, anyway. “I told him I’d consider it, but I’m not.”

“Balon Greyjoy wouldn’t want his son marrying a bastard. What is he even thinking?”

He let the question of legitimization pass by for another day. “Has he ever - well…” He trailed off. He always hated asking her that question, because he always dreaded the answer. But she’d never had a mother to handle the uncomfortable things their father had never really known how to ask about, and with Jon gone, he knew that if he didn’t ask her, no one would - and if he didn’t ask her, she probably wouldn’t tell him. In some ways, he was glad that she liked to solve problems on her own. In others, he wished she’d defer to him a little more readily, especially when it came to men. Commanding enough respect that his family could walk anywhere without fear was part of being the heir.

And it was definitely part of being the king.

She shook her head. “But I can’t say I’ve ever been alone in a room with him, either.” That made him feel even more uneasy - if she’d avoided ever being alone with him and _knew_ without thinking about it that she’d always been successful, there was something about Theon that she didn’t like and didn’t trust, even if she wouldn’t come out and say it. “I never got the sense that he liked me very much. Why?”

He hesitated. “If you dream tonight, tell me.”

“I will.”

“Keep your daggers -”

“Yes, I _know.”_ She wrinkled her nose the way she had when they’d been children and she’d been confronted with a task or a food she didn’t like. It reminded him of a happier time. “When all the great lords of the North and the Riverlands were naming you _The King in the North_ and _The King of the Trident,_ did you think that rebuffing marriage proposals for your bastard sister would end up taking up quite so much time?”

 _That_ made him laugh. “No, that never crossed my mind.” He reached out to touch her arm. “I meant what I said. You’re not going to marry Theon Greyjoy - I wouldn’t agree to it even if you wanted me to.”

That made her smile. “I know.”

“I’ve had too many men come to me about it,” he said, as much to himself as to her. “I don’t like it. It makes me nervous.”

He wasn’t sure whether he was overreacting to the situation, or even completely misreading it; marriage alliances had never been covered in any depth when he was the heir of Winterfell, presumably because it was assumed that whatever woman he ended up marrying would know more about these things. All he knew was what men thought and what men said around other men, and if they were thinking those things or saying those things about his sister, he didn’t trust them near her.

He didn’t want to have to think about all of this. He wished someone was there to think about it for him, or at least to tell him what to think about it.

“Do you keep -”

 _“Yes.”_ Now her voice was getting exasperated. In public, it might have given him pause; in private, it was vaguely comforting. “Stop asking me. Is that all?”

“No.” He refocused on her, glad to be on comfortable terrain again. “The Kingslayer has been very talkative to the men who bring him his food.”

There was a long pause. “You’re concerned about your men attacking me, but you’re comfortable sending me to bring the Kingslayer his food because there’s no bribe that will make me put a knife in my brother’s back?” He didn’t rise to the bait - he needed to know whether she would do this. “Yes. Of course.”

That was one less thing to worry about. “Tell me if you have any dreams.”

“I will.” She rested a hand on his shoulder. “Good night.”

There’d been entirely too much marriage talk for him that evening, but there at least the Kingslayer business had been sorted out. He’d give Theon his answer the next day and have that be the end of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dialogue at the beginning of Robb and Theon's conversation was taken from the tv show.
> 
> I want to give a huge shoutout to LadyBritish, who has been amazingly helpful as I work out how to expand this into a broader story. I've reworked the format a little and will continue on from here, and I couldn't have done it without her. Thank you!


	4. Green Dreams --- Aislin.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another shudder went up her spine. “There was a man,” she whispered. “There were shadows on the wall behind him, and it was so cold his lips were chapped and bleeding. He was sharpening his knife and humming a song. He was happy, I think - when he finished the song, he started to laugh.”

The first time Aislin Snow brought Jaime Lannister his food, he clearly didn't recognize her; there wasn't so much as a glimmer of vague recollection in his face as he started talking about how a Lannister always paid his debts. She ignored him.

The second time she brought Jaime Lannister his food, he started talking about his father in vaguely threatening ways. She ignored him.

The third time she brought Jaime Lannister his food, he took a different tack. "Would I have better luck with bribery?"

Aislin eyed him carefully. His threats had been fairly tame, considering, and he didn't seem to be actively looking for an opportunity to attack her. She knew better than to think that he wouldn't, though.

"No," she said finally. "I'm loyal to the king. I'm a Northerner."

The man's eyes swept across her face. There was still no jolt of recognition, but the scrutiny was discomforting all the same. "Very touching," he said finally. "How ilucky/i Robb Stark is, to have such loyal followers."

After that, he seemed to have decided that any attempts to bribe her weren't likely to be fruitful. "You said that you were a Northerner?" he asked when she tried to give him water.

"Yes."

"But a bastard." She twitched involuntarily, and he chuckled. "I thought so. Eastern shore, isn't it? Northern mother, never knew your father?"

She wasn't sure what game he was playing, but she didn't like it. "Why?"

His lips curled upward into a smirk. "You've got Valyrian blood," he said. "I can tell. Strange, for a Northerner. Big fishing village, was it? A handsome man just traveling through, your mother took him to bed for a night?"

She took two large steps backward, making sure that she was thoroughly out of his range before considering him. His lips curved upward as she thought.

"How can you tell?" she asked finally.

"I served the last Targaryen king. I know what Valyrian blood looks like."

"You _killed_ the last Targaryen king."

"Yes, well. I did serve."

He seemed to take her silence for assent, because the next day, he started calling her _Valyrian girl_. It was not a nickname she reveled in, in a large part because she would have dearly loved to tell the Kingslayer where he could put his theories and assumptions. Only the thought on Robb's face if he found out kept her from doing so.

She hadn't been particularly eager to get away from him during their earlier exchanges, but for this one, she was glad to get to Robb's tent. He glanced up from the table when she entered. Though she could see the lines across his forehead as he bent over the map, he looked serious rather than anxious. His hands were planted squarely on the table, and his gaze was steady.

He looked more like a king every day. It was very disconcerting.

His lords were already beginning to file out. Aislin pointedly did not look at Theon, though she watched out of the corner of her eye to make sure he didn't look at her. He hadn't done so since Robb had told him that Aislin becoming involved in any marriage alliance was out of the question, though Robb had probably used more diplomatic language than that.

"Anything?" Robb asked after the tent had flapped closed behind the last man.

She shook her head. "May I sit, your grace?"

He snatched a heavy leather glove off the table and tossed it at her. She dodged it. _"Don't,"_ he said as she bent down to pick the glove off the ground. When she straightened, he was pointing his finger at her. "Don't say it."

"But your grace -" He threw the other glove at her. This time, she caught it. "I'm only trying to be respectful, your -"

 _"I said, don't say it."_ He collapsed into a chair. "It's been a long night and it's nowhere near over."

With his lords gone, the frustration was starting to shine through. "Robb, what's wrong?"

"Stop calling me _your grace_. Coming from you, it just sounds like you're mocking me."

"Robb, what's -"

"I heard you." His eyes were fixed on the candle burning directly in front of him. When a light breeze blew through the unsecured flaps of the tent, the flame flickered; the harsh light dancing across his face made him look ten years older than he was.

When Robb-her-brother was in a temper, he could usually be coaxed out of it with a joke, though Jon had admittedly always been better at that than she had. Robb-the-king in a temper was more unpredictable, and common sense told her to back away.

Ultimately, she split the difference. "Do you want me to leave?" she asked, taking a few steps toward him to toss the gloves onto the table.

"No." He didn't take his eyes off the flame.

If he hadn't been king, she would have asked if he was receiving visions from the cult god from Essos. Since he was king, she held her tongue.

He finally looked up at her. His mouth twisted into a faint smile. "No, I'm not getting visions from 'the lord of light.' I have enough gods to worship as it is."

Robb-the-king was more unpredictable than Robb-her-brother, but it was nice to have the occasional reminder that Robb-the-king _was_ still her brother underneath it all.

"I didn't mean to mock you." His eyebrows rose slightly. "Well - I guess I did, but I wouldn't do it in front of anyone else, and I was just trying to make you laugh."

"I know. It's been a long day." He jerked his head toward the chair next to him. "Come and sit."

She bit back another _your grace_ and sank into the seat without comment - though from the look he gave her, she suspected he knew she'd been thinking it.

"Has the Kingslayer remembered you?" She shook her head, and he managed a strangled sort of laugh. "I wasn't expecting that. He _met_ you at Winterfell."

"Very briefly."

"Still. You look like a Stark." There wasn't an answer to that, so she kept her silence. "I suppose it's just as well. Did he try to bribe you again?"

"No," she said. "He asked me why I wasn't interested in bribes, though. I told him I was a Northerner and loyal to you." There was another faint smile at that, gone almost as quickly as it had appeared in the first place. She hesitated. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He didn't have to ask what she meant. "Theon leaves to try and make that alliance with his father tomorrow," he said, lowering his voice. "Something about it makes me uneasy, but I don't see any way to stop him without clamping him in irons."

"Why does it make you uneasy? You've always trusted him."

The frustration was plain on his face. "I don't know," he said. "I have. I probably should. I just - I've been trying to fight a war, and he's been spending his time thinking about fucking my sister. Sorry," he added when she winced. "It's just - well, it's true. He asked about it again tonight. He didn't push when I said no, but he shouldn't have asked at all. I already told him no. I'm not an idiot. He's not just looking to _unite our families_."

"No," she said. "But you can't put men in irons for wanting to fuck your sister."

Though he'd just used the term, hearing the same language coming out of her mouth made him start. After a moment, he said, "I know. It's just something my mother said - if I can't trust him with my family, I shouldn't trust him to negotiate for me. She wasn't wrong. I can't control my men's thoughts, but if they don't treat my family with respect, they don't respect me as their king. I don't trust him to treat you with respect."

Robb was starting to skirt dangerously close to calling Theon Greyjoy a traitor-in-the-making. He wasn't quite there yet, but he was getting there. "I'm just your bastard sister," she said after a long pause. "I'm not like Sansa or Arya."

"I dragged you off to war with me. You're welcome at my council meetings. You _contribute_ to my council meetings. Anyone who sees that and thinks that you're just a bastard of no account is an idiot - and of all people, _Theon_ should know better. Raising a finger against you isn't any better than raising a finger against my mother or Sansa or Arya. It's treason. I don't trust him not to commit it, and that makes me uneasy."

She knew that she should probably assuage his concerns and walk him back from the edge of this cliff - the Greyjoys were a powerful family, and their support (or at the very least, a lack of open animosity) would be invaluable in this war.

But there was too much comfort in what he was saying and the vehemence in his tone for her to do so. Robb had never paid much mind to the niceties of rank and where his bastard siblings fell in that hierarchy, but she'd never heard him draw quite so explicit a parallel to his mother and trueborn sisters before. He wouldn't say it lightly, either, and she could tell that this had been weighing on him.

Thankfully, he didn't seem to require a response. "I don't suppose you've had any dreams that would justify me clamping him in irons." She shook her head, and he sighed. "Stay here tonight," he said. "I know you have Vhagar, but - still." He glanced back at the maps on the table. "I'm not going to sleep anyway."

She frowned at him. "Is that really necessary?" She didn't point out that he was the king and had more important things to be getting on with than being overprotective of his marginally-younger bastard half-sister, but the implication was there, and from the way his jaw set after she'd asked the question, he understood what she was really asking.

"Probably not," he said after a moment. "But I'd rather that than wish I'd been more cautious later."

 

* * *

 

The candle had burned down to a small stub when Aislin woke up in a cold, clammy sweat. She could hear Robb's voice, though it was too low to make out what he was saying. When she sat up, he stopped whatever conversation he'd been having. "Ash?"

She only intended to get up to splash some water on her face, but when she'd struggled to her feet, she found that her legs were shaking too badly to hold her up. Her stomach began to twinge as she fell to her knees, and the metallic taste in her mouth worsened as the contents of her dinner made their way back up.

As her stomach heaved again, someone pulled her hair back; it had slipped over her shoulders and had been dangling precariously next to her face. When she finally sat back, she took the canteen of water her brother offered her with shaking hands and took a big gulp, swishing it around in her mouth.

"Sorry," she croaked. "I had a dream."

"I see." He glanced past her, and when she followed his gaze, she found Lady Stark standing behind her.

Aislin felt her stomach twist again as she realized who had held her hair back. "My lady," she hastened to say. "I'm sorry -"

Robb cut her off. "What did you dream?"

Another shudder went up her spine. "There was a man," she whispered. "There were shadows on the wall behind him, and it was so cold his lips were chapped and bleeding. He was sharpening his knife and humming a song. He was happy, I think - when he finished the song, he started to laugh."

Robb sat back on his heels, eyebrows furrowed. "Do you remember the song?"

She shook her head and took another sip of water. "It sounded vaguely familiar, but I don't think it was Northern."

He glanced past her at his mother. Aislin didn't follow his gaze; Lady Stark had never had much use for the old gods, and even if Aislin had been inclined to engage with the lady on the subject, she was still too shaken to want to try. The man's laughter had echoed around the hall in her dream like a howl, tearing through the shadows until they'd blurred with the grey stone they hung on.

Her stomach twisted again. "Move," she croaked. Robb sprang to his feet and stepped to the side just as she emptied the rest of her stomach onto the dirt. "Sorry," she managed to get out. He picked the empty canteen up off the ground and handed her another.

When she'd collected herself and tried to wash the taste from her mouth - she was successful in ridding herself of the vomit, but the vague taste of metal remained - she let him pull her to feet. When she looked down, she saw that there were spots on her skirts.

Before she could say anything, she felt a hand close around her elbow. "Let's clean you up," Lady Stark said. When Robb opened his mouth, his mother said, "We'll be back."

"That's not -" He sighed. "Take Grey Wind."

"I already have a direwolf, Robb."

"I know. Take Grey Wind anyway."

Aislin was far more concerned about changing into something that wasn't speckled with vomit than arguing with him, so she let it be. "I don't really mind dirt," she told Lady Stark as they walked, "but…"

"Yes." It wasn't until they were returning to Robb's tent that the lady said anything more of consequence. "Do you often get dreams like that?" Her voice was low.

"Sometimes." Aislin glanced over at the big, dark shape loping along just to the left of them. All of the direwolves had grown rapidly, but Grey Wind was by far the biggest, at least of those left in Winterfell when their sisters and brother had departed to go South and North. "Robb thinks they're green dreams."

"What do you think?"

"I don't know. I think Bran and Rickon get dreams like that, too, and I can't imagine we're all greenseers."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many thanks to LadyBritish, who's been incredibly helpful as this story has transformed from one-shot to two-shot to longer story. <3 (And, of course, thanks to everyone for reading!)


	5. Valyrian Girl --- Robb.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If that’s true, I should send her back to Winterfell.”

Aislin wasn't able to get much more specific about her dream, but Robb decided it was worth holding Theon back anyway.

"She had a dream," Robb told him the following morning. "You know how their dreams can be. Might be nothing, but I'll feel safer with you watching my back. Let's push it back for a few weeks."

That seemed to be the right way to present it, because Theon was quick to agree. Robb managed to assuage his curiosity with vague answers, and then trudged off. He'd deliberated with himself about it, but he'd ultimately come down on the side of speaking with the Kingslayer - his sister hadn't said anything of any real significance the previous evening, but she'd seemed disquieted after she'd come in from giving the man his food, and Robb wanted to know why.

The Kingslayer, of course, was entirely unhelpful, and Robb had given up and turned to leave when the man said, "Like father, like son."

Robb turned back. He'd usually have taken any comparison to his father as a compliment, but the presentation didn't sound like positive. "Excuse me?"

"I'd understood that you were promised to a Frey girl."

Robb managed to keep himself from grimacing only with difficulty. He was not anticipating his upcoming nuptials with any eagerness. "I am promised to a Frey girl."

The Kingslayer smirked. "Having met more than enough Frey girls, I can't fault you for warming your bed with Valyrian blood in the meantime." At Robb's frown, he added, "Dark hair, dark eyes - you kissed her goodbye before riding off to battle last week. Chastely, I'll grant you - you could use more practice with whores. You're not meant to kiss their foreheads."

Robb's sword was out and at the Kingslayer's throat before he'd processed what he was doing. "Don't call my sister a whore."

A few drops of blood dripped onto his blade. "Your sister," the Kingslayer said after a moment. He didn't move, though his eyes narrowed slightly. "Ah. The bastard."

Robb knew that he shouldn't have said that. He'd explicitly cautioned Aislin against saying anything along those lines, and she'd managed to refrain from doing so.

He also knew that he was tired of defending her from slights that his mother and trueborn sisters never received. Intellectually, he understood it - but on a practical level, it was a nuisance, and on an emotional level, it made his temper flare. Good brothers didn't let people call their sisters names, especially not if they weren't joking.

"Well, you'll be pleased to know that your sister isn't easy to bribe or threaten. I tried." Robb pulled his sword back and sheathed it without saying anything else. After a beat, the Kingslayer added, "So you're not fucking her, then?"

Robb kept his hand on his sword, but he didn't pull it back out. "She's my sister, Kingslayer."

"Yes, well. Still. I've fucked my sister more times than I can count, and yours is very pretty."

"I'm not you, and if you touch her, you'll lose the hand." It occurred to Robb that this might all just be a ruse to distract him, so he glanced down. The Kingslayer's hands were clearly still chained the the post, and Robb wasn't close enough for the man to kick him.

He turned and walked away.

When he mentioned the encounter to Aislin, she called him an idiot for rising to the bait. He didn't argue with her. When he mentioned it to his mother, however, the color drained from her face. "What?" he snapped. "If you know something that I don't, tell me."

His mother glanced at the entrance to the tent. Guards stood there, ever watchful, and the area near it was bustling. "Walk with me," she said.

He followed her out of the tent and through the camp, trying to quell his impatience. "Mother," he started to say as she passed the last tents. She kept going, and after a moment, he rolled his eyes and followed her. "I hope you actually know something," he snapped. "Otherwise, this is a waste of time. I don't see why you couldn't just say -"

"You will," she said shortly. When she finally came to a stop, she glanced around the thin scattering of trees. "Are we alone?" she asked Grey Wind, who'd followed them. He whined and lay down. She seemed to take that as assent, though she scanned the trees one more time.

"Mother."

She got to the point. "She's not your father's daughter."

He sighed. Fiction like this might make his mother feel better, but he didn't have time for it, especially not when it involved twenty minutes of fast-paced walking. There were many, many other things that he needed to be doing. "Of course she is," he snapped. "Jon looks just like Father does - did. They both have direwolves. Who else's daughter would she be?"

His mother's eyes were on him. "Your aunt Lyanna's."

That caught his attention. Suddenly he was aware of every twig that rustled in the light breeze sweeping through the trees. "What?"

"They're your aunt Lyanna's children."

He took a deep breath. He felt no less impatient, but now he was starting to feel concerned as well. "Then who's their father?" he asked gently. "Mother, this is -"

His mother cut him off. "Think, Robb."

For half a moment, he was genuinely confused. Then the rest of his brain caught up, and something unpleasant twinged in his stomach. "Why would Father lie and say they were his?"

"Who would look for Rhaegar Targaryen's face in Eddard Stark's bastards?"

He felt his blood run cold, and he glanced back toward the camp. "Or Father just had bastards," he said after a moment. "I'm sorry, Mother - but it's not uncommon, and it was before…"

He trailed off.

"What did your aunt Lyanna die of?" she asked. He'd always wondered that - wondered, but never dared to ask. "Why were half the Kingsguard there when your father reached her?"

Robb let himself sink down to sit on the trunk of a blackened tree. He wasn't sure that he should let himself get drawn into this line of thinking - he still wasn't convinced it wasn't just some strange interpretation on her part - but there was a part of him that almost believed her. He felt like he might be sick. "When King's Landing was sacked, they killed Elia and her children."

"Yes."

Pieces were starting to fall into place, and he hated it. He took one last stab at trying to convince someone - her? himself? - that it wasn't true. "Did he tell you?"

She finally looked away from him. "No."

"So maybe -"

"He told me that they were his blood. That was the phrase he used, always. His blood." Robb was glad that he was only wearing light leather armor, because he was starting to find it difficult to breathe. He hadn't thought that anything could be quite as jarring and frightening as a battle, but this might qualify. His father was - had always been - straightforward and truthful to a fault. He'd never been inclined to vagueness. "And she has something of Rhaegar in her face."

Robb clenched his hands together and stared down at the ground. He wanted to keep arguing, but what she was saying was suddenly starting to ring true. "If that's true, I should send her back to Winterfell." His stomach sank; she'd never forgive him, and her dreams had been more than useful - but better that than her dead or kidnapped. "Someone might recognize her."

"There aren't many people in this camp who ever met any Targaryens, let alone Rhaegar. He didn't often venture so far up north."

"And she's already been recognized by one who has."

His mother sighed. "He was taunting you, that's all. A few weeks ago, you told me you needed her here."

"Well, she can have her dreams at Winterfell and send me ravens." His mother didn't say anything. She didn't have to. He knew it was foolish.

He was pulled aside several times on his way back through the camp, and by the time he got back to his tent, the sky was dark. He found Aislin sitting there alone, Vhagar at her feet - and that name seemed more than a little ironic now. She had a battered piece of parchment in her hands, and he studied her face for a long moment from just inside the entrance. He'd always known that she was considered pretty, just as Sansa was, but normal men didn't stare at their sisters' features and pine over them - they looked at their sisters as people and fought other men for pining in the wrong ways.

Or sometimes in any way.

But right now, if he pretended for a minute that he didn't know her, he could see the delicateness his mother had alluded to, especially in her cheekbones. He'd never met Rhaegar, obviously - never met any Targaryens - but he thought he could see what his mother meant.

He could also see why Theon had pushed the issue, and why she'd never wanted to be alone with him.

He was about to speak when something else occurred to him. You didn't leave three Kingsguard to protect the prince's bastards instead of his trueborn children. Not even the Targaryens were that mad.

He still wasn't sure whether he believed his mother, but he did believe that if his aunt Lyanna had died giving birth to Prince Rhaegar's children, his father's actions would have been perfectly in line with the story he'd told for Robb's entire life.

Sisters were really entirely too much trouble.

"You know, that's going to fall to pieces soon," he said. "You're never going to find something new in it."

She started and looked up. "I know," she said after a moment. "I just - I miss him. He hasn't written in ages."

Robb reached out and closed his fingers around the parchment. She let him take it from her and put it on the table. "He said he'd be going north of the wall," he pointed out as he placed a rock on top of it to stop it from blowing away. "Maybe he's just not back yet. You'd know if he wasn't okay, Ash. Stop worrying."

She managed a tight smile. His eyes went back to her cheekbones. He couldn't have said why his doubt vanished right then, but it did, and he wanted to kick himself for not realizing that something was wrong with his father's story long, long before now.

Of course, if he'd realized it, others undoubtedly would have as well, and she'd have probably ended up being killed like they'd tried to do to Bran - except they'd have kept coming until she was dead.

"Come here." He pulled her out of the chair and wrapped his arms around her.

It took her a moment to reciprocate. When she did, it was tentative. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"

He shook his head and gripped her tighter. Sisters were entirely too much trouble right up until you thought about someone assassinating them for having what he was realizing was a fairly strong claim to the Iron Throne, and then suddenly they were worth all the trouble in the world.

It occurred to him that if she was hundreds of miles away in Winterfell, there'd be minimal defenses if anyone did realize the truth. At least here with the army, they'd have quite a lot of people to fight through first.

When he pulled back, her eyebrows were knit together. "What's wrong?" she asked again.

"I'm sorry I snapped at the Kingslayer," he said. He wasn't sure what to do about that; he didn't trust anyone else to deal with Jaime Lannister on a daily basis, not even his mother - she was far too vulnerable to taunts about Sansa and Arya - but he also knew that the more exposure the Kingslayer had to Aislin, the more likely it was that he'd guess the truth.

Of course, if Robb did send her away, the Kingslayer might guess anyway.

Robb had briefly considered telling her the truth, but while Aislin had a tendency to omit things, she wasn't very good at lying - and it seemed to him like the fewer people who knew, the safer it was.

"He'd have recognized me eventually," she said. "He didi meet me, if just for a few minutes. Anyway, it's just as well. The questions about what you've done to earn my loyalty were starting to get annoying. At least family is something even a Lannister could understand."

He smiled faintly. "You'd think. But be careful around him."

"Yes, your grace."

"Don't call me that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been entirely, entirely too long since I updated this story, and I know it. I'm sorry. Life has been... well, kind of difficult over the past year. There's a serious illness in my family that's sapped a lot of my muse, and it's been tough for me to get past writer's block with this. I'm fairly happy with this chapter, though, and I really hope you are, too - I'd love to hear your thoughts, and despite my being so pokey, I've really appreciated all of the kudos, comments, and reads on this. Thank you so, so much!
> 
> \- Branwen


	6. Looking for Cracks --- Jaime.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He probably couldn’t drive a wedge between the Snow girl and her brother - but he was starting to think that he could probably use her against him, anyway._

Jaime Lannister had to admit it: Robb Stark was a surprisingly good commander, for how young and inexperienced he was. His victory at the Whispering Wood hadn’t been a fluke; as it stood, Robb Stark was well on his way to winning this war.

Robb Stark was also well on his way to being a much better king than Joffrey ever would, though Jaime would never have phrased it in quite those terms to Cersei. The boy would have been lost in a world of intrigue - Stark men always were - but a throne built by conquest was different.

If there was one thing that bannermen universally responded to, it was lords who got their hands dirty. Add that to the adoration Ned Stark had enjoyed for being _so very honorable_ and the superstitious mythology surrounding those damn wolves, Robb Stark was extraordinarily popular among people who hadn’t even met him.

If anything was going to bite Stark in the ass, it would be the sister. It wasn’t uncommon for nobles to bring their bastard brothers or sons to war with them, often with the implicit promise of a lordship if they triumphed - that’s how the Baratheon house had started, or so the story went. But a sister was more unusual, particularly when the sister didn’t appear to be one of those northern warrior women and particularly when Stark’s lady mother - who had infamously disliked her husband’s bastards, for admittedly obvious reasons - was also wandering around the camp.

Relying too much on women was a sure way to seem weak to your men, and there had to be enough bad blood there to create… disagreements.

Stark seemed to be utilizing them fairly well, though. He’d been smart enough to not leave Jaime with one of his bannermen, and he’d also been smart enough to keep Jaime well away from Catelyn Stark - much to Jaime’s chagrin. He knew the woman well enough to know that she could be goaded with comments about her daughters.

The Snow girl, on the other hand, had proved remarkably immovable. It was clear that he sometimes irritated her, but he hadn’t been able to find any meaningful cracks in her relationship with her brother. Bribery and overt threats had fallen on deaf ears, and insults seemed to largely inspire eye rolls. It was clear that she didn’t _like_ him insulting her brother, but either she was a generally composed person or her brother was holding something very significant over her head to keep her in line.

He had no idea what kind of person she was in general - he’d barely given a thought to Ned Stark’s bastards even when he was at Winterfell, other than to feel amused that the _so very honorable_ Ned Stark had bastards in the first place - but if he had to guess, he’d have guessed the latter.

He’d found more cracks in Robb Stark during the admittedly fewer interactions he’d had with him, but those were largely in the form of being an overprotective brother when it came to the sister there was any point in being overprotective of - and if Jaime ever got back to King’s Landing and all he had to offer was that Robb Stark didn’t like his enemies calling his sister a whore, he thought that his sister and his brother would probably (for once) actually manage to agree with each other, though the “well, of course he doesn’t,” would probably carry different inflections.

Stannis was stiff and boring. Robb Stark was wholesome and boring. After extenive deliberation, since he had nothing better to do, Jaime had decided that he preferred being Robb Stark’s prisoner to being Stannis’s, but it had been a close thing. They were both tediously sanctimonious, but at least Stark hadn’t joined a cult, and there was some minor intrigue in the form of his sister.

“Your brother is teaching you to use a sword,” he commented one afternoon as she gave him water.

 _“King_ Robb is teaching me to use a sword, yes.”

“Does he insist that you call him that? Good gods, maybe he is as stiff as Stannis. Even Joffrey doesn’t insist on his kin calling him king behind his back.”

Though he might if he knew they didn’t.

“But you’re not his kin,” she said, putting the stopper back in the water and standing up. “You’re a Lannister, and he’s the King in the North and of the Riverlands.”

“That sounds tedious to list out.”

“Fighting your family is tedious for him. We all have problems.”

She turned. He watched the red wolf, always hovering by the door to the pen when she was inside it, join her as they walked away.

The Starks were certainly wholesome, boring, and sanctimonious, but he doubted that any of Stannis’s people understood sarcasm - much less were capable of using it. That was a plus, as far as being a prisoner to boring and sanctimonious people went.

“Why are you so loyal to him?” he asked the next day. The sun was starting to set, but the area was well-illuminated by torches, and that damn wolf was still hovering behind her. Even if he could have tried something, he wouldn’t have been stupid enough to do it now - and with his hands chained behind his back again, he didn’t have a chance at escaping, not right now.

Her expression didn’t change. “He’s my brother,” she said flatly.

“No…” He drew out the word. “No, I know family loyalty. This isn’t that. What did he do to deserve this level of…” He considered the word for a moment. “… adoration?” Her face went stony, and he rolled his eyes. “Purely wholesome adoration. Yes, I know. I would never impugn the _honor_ of the Starks.”

She glanced away from him and toward the heart of the camp. He wished that he was in a position to take advantage of her momentary loss of focus. He wasn’t sure whether Stark would order him filled with arrows if he had a knife to his bastard sister’s throat, but Jaime would have loved to test it. “If I need him, he’s always there,” she said after a moment. “And he’s never left me.”

“And yet you’re still a Snow. He could legitimize you if he wanted, you know.”

“He already has an heir in Winterfell, and I’m not going to make a marriage alliance,” she shot back, returning her attention to him. “Why would he bother?”

It took him a moment to process that - it wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting. “How thoughtful of him,” he said eventually. “It’s just that if it was me, I wouldn’t want people calling my sister a bastard.”

“Well, I suppose that’s why you’re his prisoner rather than the other way around.” Her smile was sickly sweet, and even in this light, he could see that it didn’t reach her eyes. _“He_ can think about the big picture.”

Of course she’d say that. He wasn’t sure why he’d even bothered to challenge her on it - she clearly worshipped the ground Robb Stark walked on in an utterly predictable way.

And she didn’t seem to realize that she’d just given him quite a lot of information. She’d been ready with a response to the jibe about legitimization, which meant that they’d either actively talked about it or she’d thought about it - so it was on the table, even if Robb Stark wasn’t doing anything about it right now.

On one hand, Jaime supposed that it wasn’t that strange, given that they’d grown up together. On the other hand, doing so would have irritated both Stark’s lady mother and the Riverlands as a whole, the latter of whom Stark needed to fight this war. It _shouldn’t_ have been an option on the table.

He probably couldn’t drive a wedge between the Snow girl and her brother - but he was starting to think that he could probably use her against him, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that introducing another PoV isn't making this go too off the rails - I just kind of love Jaime and the chapter wrote itself? I was originally just looking at it as a brainstorming exercise, but I actually kind of like how it turned out? Idk? I'd love feedback on how it turned out and whether I was able to capture Jaime's voice.
> 
> I want to especially thank LadyBritish for all her help brainstorming this last year. <3
> 
> Comments/kudos/bookmarks are always appreciated. Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> \- Branwen


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